Icarus
by DreadNot
Summary: A series of connected yet standalone vignettes set almost entirely Dawn era with Girlycard and young Walter. Most chapters will have at least implied slash. VIII. Acheron
1. In the Beginning

_This is a different way of doing things for me. This is a non-linear AU. By non-linear I mean that I'll be building a shared history for Walter and Girlycard, but won't be taking it chronologically. This will bounce back and forth in time, there will be references between chapters to events that have or will only happened within this AU and not within canon. If that gets a bit confusing, I suggest taking each chapter as a standalone tale._

_This first chapter/installment is the shortest. From here on, it gets wordier.  
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_Hellsing, The Dawn, and all their characters belong to Kohta Hirano and whatever corporate entity has licensed the Hellsing portion of his soul.  
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* * *

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He cut off the cold hand that grasped his to pull him out of the pile of mutilated bodies. It was instinctive, not intentional. When Walter saw Alucard looking in irritation at his severed appendage, he winced and braced himself for the repercussions.

"You cut off my hand." Alucard's tone was more of surprise than anger.

"I know."

"Am I going to have to take you over my knee?"

Walter fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and found one that wasn't too crushed to be smokable. "You'll need a hand to hold me there and one to swat me with," he commented after lighting up and exhaling a cloud of smoke.

He thought he probably should be afraid after cutting off Alucard's hand, but Walter had already used up the night's quota of fear when he'd been buried under a rain of bodies – or rather, a rain of body parts.

"I think I need more practice," he said, surveying the carnage.

"More practice?" Alucard's features split in a sharklike grin, incongruous on his dainty features. "This was your first actual search and destroy mission and you killed everything you found."

"And I buried myself under a heap of bloody bits. You're not going to always be around to pull me out of the pile."

He looked at Alucard's dropped hand and picked it up, turning it over curiously until the fingers twitched and stroked over his palm. "Oh, very funny," he muttered and threw the hand at Alucard, who caught it and casually stuck it back on his wrist.

"With more practice, you are going to be a veritable Angel of Death, Walter Dornez."

Walter shook the hair out of his eyes and gave Alucard a bleak smile that belonged to someone far older than the boy's twelve years. "I'll be whatever sort of angel it takes to send them all to Hell."


	2. Lethe

_**Notes:** I actually gave myself a bit of a challenge to write a hurt-comfort fic, and this is what came of that. There are few things I can see actually inspiring comforting behavior in Alucard. However, the aftermath of a rape, given his possible history (see below) would be one of those few things. I'm afraid one image from a noncon doujinshi got stuck in my head and that provided enough fodder for me to write this. I hope that I've handled the matter of Walter's reaction with tact. If I haven't, I apologize. _

_Alucard comes off softer and more sympathetic in this story than I would usually write him. I'm basing that aspect of his characterization on the Alucard/Dracula/Vlad Tepes connection in that Vlad was a hostage to the Turks for some time, and there are implications that he was abused by them during that period. Given his young age at the time and the no doubt shocking nature of the experience, it's one of the few human experiences that I could see still holding emotional weight for him. Thus the nicer side of Alucard._

* * *

"Go away!" 

The door slammed in the vampire's face.

Being over five hundred years old may make most things unsurprising, but Alucard was nonplussed by Walter's reaction. He walked through the closed door and silently regarded the young man until Walter spun and reflexively threw out a handful of wire.

Alucard blocked the worst of the lashes with an arm, particularly the one aimed at his head, and stood staring at Walter while he dripped blood on the floor.

"You have not been yourself since we returned from Poland," he observed. "Your hair trigger reflexes are too easily triggered of late." He unwound the tangled wires from his arm and dropped them to the floor where Walter retrieved them with a quick flick of his fingers.

"You don't have to keep bleeding on my floor," was Walter's terse non-response as he cleaned the droplets of Alucard's blood off his rings where the wires had left traces when they retracted.

The blood flowed across the floor and merged with Alucard's shoe, the drops on Walter's fingers seemingly evaporated away, the red stains on the vampire's white suit were absorbed, leaving it spotless once more.

"Better?" Alucard crossed the room and pulled Walter away from the window to push him to sit down on the bed.

"Tell me." Alucard stood in front of Walter and watched him seriously. "Arthur has noticed the change, too. You don't sleep, you rarely eat, and you've entirely lost your good humor."

"He sent you, didn't he? You wouldn't come asking about my feelings on your own."

"What affects your duties, affects Arthur. What affects Arthur, affects me." Alucard answered, pulling the chair away from Walter's desk to sit across from him.

Walter shook his head and looked back toward the window. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You were right. I am here at Arthur's orders. He wants to know what your problem is. With orders like those it would be well within my scope to find the answer directly from your mind…" Alucard leaned forward and put gloved fingertips on the young man's cheek to make him look away from the window. "Tell me and I won't have to take it from you that way."

"You taught me yourself – never admit fear. Never show weakness." It was as close to an admission of fear or weakness as Walter was willing to give.

"Then I'll have to get it myself. Are we going to do this the hard way, or the easy way?"

"What's the hard way?" Walter scooted back on the bed, out of Alucard's reach, to rest his back against the headboard. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and lit it while watching Alucard's face.

"The hard way means that I force my way into your mind and take anything that appears to be relevant to your problem. It's invasive." Alucard shrugged, red eyes gleaming under his bangs. "I suppose it probably hurts, too."

Walter took a slow drag from his cigarette and watched the stream of smoke he exhaled dissipate before he looked back at the vampire. "I'm not afraid of pain. What's the easy way?"

"The easy way requires that you lie down and get some rest. I'll join you and take what I need from your dreams."

"You'll join me?" Walter blinked and covered his surprise with another drag from his cigarette. "I can't say that sounds very easy – letting a vampire watch me sleep."

Alucard grinned and leaned forward conspiratorially. "I've done it before and you're still alive and kicking."

Before Walter could find a response, Alucard bounced out of the chair and began to rifle through the young man's dresser drawers. He found what he was looking for and tossed a pair of pajamas at the surprised young butler. "Put them on. I know you don't sleep in your clothes unless you're ready to drop."

"I didn't say I was going to do it." Walter caught the clothes and leaned over to crush out the remains of his cigarette. "I don't want to do any of this. Just go back and tell Arthur it's none of his goddamned business."

"Never show fear, Angel. Remember?" Alucard climbed onto the bed and leaned against the headboard next to him. "A coward runs away now."

Walter's angry glare was met with a smug grin. Alucard picked up the pajamas and shook them out. "Pinstripes suit you." He laughed at Walter's back as the young man snatched the clothes out of his hand and stalked out of the room to change.

He was still sitting on the bed when Walter came out. Alucard hadn't lied about watching Hellsing's Angel sleep, but he'd never seen the young man walking around in his pajamas. The sight made him chuckle while he patted the pillow next to him. "Come to bed."

Walter waited until Alucard moved to the far side of the bed before getting in. He settled stiffly on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

"You don't sleep like that."

"No. I don't. But I also don't sleep with a vampire in my bed." Walter scowled at Alucard. "I prefer sleeping alone."

"Then tell me what the problem is or give me permission to take it forcefully. You have the luxury of three choices; don't complain to me if you don't like them."

Walter squeezed his eyes closed and forced his body to relax starting from the bottom up. He pushed aside the guilt for what Alucard would find, the embarrassment, the anger at being forced to give up this secret and concentrated on his toes and his ankles, his legs and his arms. His hands didn't want to relax, but with an effort, he unclenched them and laid them loosely at his sides.

Alucard silently observed the discipline that Walter used to make his body obey him even in a circumstance where he was obviously both angry and uncomfortable. The young man had such potential. He would have gone far in past times where his self-discipline and mental and physical strength would have put him head and shoulders above most. It was really too bad that he had no desire to lead.

He watched Walter's face finally relax into sleep, noting the change in his breathing and heartbeat. When Alucard was certain that he was deeply asleep, he moved the blanket and sheet and slid under them to mold himself against the other man's body.

He drew his mind over Walter's when the young man stirred, soothing him back into slumber. He lay quietly basking in the human warmth and vitality, hearing the blood rushing through human veins, smelling the life on each of his exhalations. There were so few opportunities of this sort since Alucard had lost his freedom to Abraham van Helsing.

If only he could take the next steps.

He brushed his lips over the fluttering pulse in Walter's neck. Despite almost aching with the desire for the blood he smelled so near, van Helsing's little charms still held.

Some night, though, he would taste this man. Walter would beg him to do it.

Another night.

He shifted a limp arm until he was comfortably settled with his face pressed into the crook of Walter's neck. The vampire smiled to imagine his reaction upon waking to find Alucard cozied up to him. With a bloodless nip to the inviting skin under his lips, he closed his eyes, drifting his consciousness down and through Walter's, catching pieces of drifting dream and pulling them up to be examined.

-

He hurt so much, but the worst was the pain where his shoulder had been dislocated. They hadn't popped it back into place when they'd handcuffed his hands behind his back, and every movement of the lorry jostling down the unpaved road was an agony. He closed his eyes and bit back a cry of pain when the lorry went over another bump.

"Wake up."

He opened his eyes and blinked, clearing his vision before widening his eyes to recognize the fat German officer. Somehow he'd lost time and was no longer in the lorry, but in an antiseptically lit room lying on a cold metal table.

He registered the fat man speaking, but the words came to him sounding as though they had passed through water to get to his ears. He shook his head to clear it and yelped when a big hand grasped his dislocated arm to pull him up off the table.

The fat man and the man with the strange glasses looked very happy, but he still couldn't understand what they were saying to each other or to him. They said something to the one holding him upright and left the room.

He looked up at the big man and felt a moment of thoroughly numbing terror when he realized that it was the werewolf. They'd left him alone with the werewolf. He looked around for an avenue of escape and cried out in a combination of surprised fright and agony when his captor jerked him roughly around by his injured arm and roughly pulled his trousers off, ignoring his struggles and kicks as though they were nothing.

No.

He was treated like little more than a doll by the big man who paid no attention to his struggles, bending him over a table and jerking brutally on his injured arm to make him cry out again despite his resolution to remain silent no matter what happened.

No.

He screamed with the sudden invasive pain that drowned the agony in his shoulder and felt hot tears roll down his face at his helplessness before this violation.

_NO! _

-

Walter sat up, panting and covered in cold sweat. He barely noticed Alucard's presence in the bed with him, instead hunching over his knees and shuddering with the force of the memory.

"It was just a few hours before you found me. I told you then that they'd just slapped me around, but I lied." His voice trembled under the tight control he was keeping.

He stiffened and tried to pull away when the vampire put his arms around him, but Alucard did not permit it, tightening his grip on the larger man as a physical reminder of which of the two of them was actually stronger.

"Do you have to tell Arthur? Can't you just tell him you know what the problem is and I'll get over it if he'll just leave me be?"

Walter looked over his shoulder at the vampire when he heard Alucard's soft words, "I can't, but I can help you."

"I'm not weak." Walter jerked against Alucard's restraining arms almost growling with the anger that grew to cover his fear and shame.

"No, Angel. I know you aren't weak." Alucard brushed the hair out of Walter's eyes and spoke quietly, confidingly against his ear. "There are pains I would wish on my enemies, but this is one I wouldn't wish for an ally."

"What kind of help do you think you can give me?" he asked dully, humoring the vampire to get on from this as quickly as possible.

"I can make you forget. You won't remember any of it. No more nightmares. No more memories of what happened."

Walter's almost caught his breath at the speed with which he wanted to say, _Yes! Yes, I don't want to remember this. Do it!_ He stopped and forced himself to breathe.

"I'm not weak," he repeated for his own benefit, missing Alucard's almost-smile in response to the comment.

"No, Angel. I know you aren't weak," Alucard responded once again. He tightened his grip on the young man until he was forced to recline against the vampire's chest. "But clinging to this does weaken you. You are less effective now. Keeping the memory has no benefit to you or to Hellsing."

Walter tried to find an argument against the reasoning, but had none. He dearly wanted to forget what had happened in Poland. Hellsing had full reports from him about everything; he didn't _need_ to remember.

He relaxed himself against Alucard and nodded, giving his assent. "For Hellsing." He could live with telling himself he was making the choice for Hellsing's sake.

"For Hellsing," Alucard agreed, withholding his own opinion of Hellsing. "Now try to relax, this won't hurt." And if it did, Walter wouldn't remember anyway.

Nervous, he found himself analyzing every sensation, trying to determine which would be the feel of Alucard beginning to erase his memories. Was that itch on the back of his neck the sign? The need to blink more than usual? Perhaps the creeping along his spine? He was driving himself crazy with minute analyses and embraced with relief the sudden darkness that fell, welcoming the dreamless sleep it brought.

•••

Walter opened his eyes and jerked to realize that he had a person in bed with him, fumbling backward out of bed and onto the floor when he realized it was Alucard. He rose immediately to his feet and unconsciously rubbed his hand over his unmarked throat where Alucard's face had been resting. 

A look at the brightening sky outside told him that he'd been asleep the entire night. "Did you find what you came for, Alucard? I don't remember any dreams."

"No." Alucard stretched slowly, luxuriously, before slipping off the bed, smiling brightly at Walter. "Your dreams told me nothing, but I think I'll tell Arthur that you'll be feeling better on your own soon. You're not weak, Angel."

"I know I'm not weak," Walter responded, frowning at the déjà vu those words evoked. "Thank you."

"It was nothing," Alucard said with a smile that bothered Walter for the rest of the day until he realized that the problem with the smile had been its complete lack of malice.


	3. Ouroboros

  
"Nervous, Angel?"

"I wish you'd stop calling me that," Walter grumbled and leaned back in the doorway, wishing he could light a cigarette without drawing too much attention.

"You pink up so nicely when I do," Alucard murmured in his ear. "All that blood flowing to your cheeks is quite appetizing."

"Look, just because we're supposed to be waiting for a vampire who preys on the people who come down here to… you know… do business, doesn't mean you need to be leaning on me like that. You don't even look like a man." Walter kept his eyes on the street watching the occasional couple with a careful eye. All human so far.

"Just think of how much money you could earn with your pretty face and strong body."

The change in Alucard's voice drew Walter's attention away from the street. His companion was no longer the smiling child Walter was accustomed to, but a tall man in an absurd Victorian greatcoat.

"You're right. We didn't look like a pair who were here for business." Alucard leaned against the boy and grinned down at him. "Now we do."

"Don't make me cut anything off of you, Alucard. I know it makes you pissy." Walter glanced down meaningfully to make it clear what he was threatening to cut. He'd spent the better part of a year on the streets after his parents had died and he hadn't had to resort to selling himself to get by. The young Angel of Death wasn't going to be giving away what he hadn't sold to survive.

"Do you have a problem with intimacy between men?"

"I don't give a fuck who fucks whom, okay?" Walter snapped and put a hand on Alucard's chest to push him back a few inches. "As long as I am neither the fucker nor the fuckee."

"Strong words for a man your age." Alucard leaned into Walter again, grinning at the boy's discomfiture. For all that the boy had maturity and responsibilities far beyond his thirteen years, he was still just a boy in many ways and it was entertaining to keep him off balance.

"Are you trying to be funny?" Walter turned away from Alucard, trying to ignore the chill presence behind him while he watched the street again. He'd kill for a cigarette soon, and if Alucard didn't shut up, he'd be at the top of the list for who Walter would be killing.

"Yes, this is all quite amusing," Alucard replied before going silent.

The two maintained their vigil through much of the chilly night, watching young men and their older patrons pass by on their way to secluded locations to complete their assignations.

"He's coming." Walter startled out of a light doze when Alucard whispered in his ear. "This one is supposed to be your first solo kill."

"I've killed on my own before," he hissed at the vampire.

"Ghouls. This is a vampire. A lesser creature, but still a vampire."

Walter shrugged and scanned the street for his prey. He grunted and pushed at Alucard when the vampire suddenly pushed him against the doorframe and bent to bring his face down to Walter's, his hair covering both their faces in a silky black fall that smelled faintly of earth and copper.

"Don't fight, Angel. I'm your client," Alucard murmured as he brushed his nose over Walter's. "Your next customer will be coming around the corner in a moment. Let him pass by, observe him carefully, we'll follow him at a distance."

Walter could see the street faintly through Alucard's hair and found himself holding his breath waiting to see his target.

"Breathe," Alucard reminded him. "And do give your customer his money's worth," he whispered in Walter's ear, smirking to feel the boy shiver.

"Ass," Walter grumbled, but he put his arms around Alucard in a manner he hoped gave the impression they were in a passionate clinch. He wasn't going to go for full verisimilitude for anything, though.

After what felt like an eternity, Walter finally heard footsteps and voices. A short, broad man and a boy even smaller and stringier than Walter came around the corner and passed by on their way to the park and its various darkened hideaways.

Walter and Alucard waited until the two had reached the edge of the park before leaving the doorway. Walter wanted to draw away when the vampire put an arm around him, but couldn't for the sake of appearances.

"You're enjoying this too much." He shot Alucard a dirty look. "You're going to let me do this by myself, right? No jumping in to make the kill yourself? Right?" 

"Of course not. This is all yours." Alucard gave him a familiar squeeze and turned sharply before entering the park, allowing Walter to walk on in alone. "Don't get ghouled. I'd be very disappointed in you."

Walter rolled his eyes and followed the dim silhouettes of the couple they had followed, hoping for a moment when they were sufficiently separate to be able to eliminate his target without endangering the human. No one who came here to conduct business was an innocent, but that didn't merit death under a vampire's fangs.

The boy turned to look back and saw Walter following them. "Go away," he hissed, tugging the man forward with him toward a heavy patch of shrubs.

Walter drew a deep breath and felt his adrenaline surge, leaving his skin prickling and hot as he dug his toes into the grass under his feet and launched himself at the pair.

Fast. He had to be fast. But faster than a vampire?

The small foot that caught him in the stomach and knocked the breath out of him took him by surprise. He danced back from the boy who had turned on him and threw a handful of wires out to catch the figure that was already on the move.

The boy was almost on him when Walter pulled the wires through his teeth and drew them tight. He flinched at the sudden spray of blood and dodged the remains of the vampire as they continued on their prior trajectory.

Glancing around, he saw the boy's patron turned prey running for the edge of the park. He'd nearly killed a human.

"You smell delicious."

Walter spun around and struck out, wincing when his fist struck Alucard in the sternum and the vampire remained unmoved.

"You didn't tell me it was the boy!"

"You didn't kill the human," Alucard observed.

"Luck," Walter spat. "I came this close…" He held up his fingers to indicate how close and realized they were shaking. "Just forget it. I want to go home." 


	4. Orpheus

_The Blitz began 7 September 1940 with a daylight attack on London. Three hundred six people were killed in that first raid._

_The last night of bombing of London proper was 10 May 1941 and was also the night that had the worst cost in both property and lives with nearly fifteen hundred people killed and many historical landmarks damaged or destroyed in addition to the damage done to hospitals, homes, and businesses._

_For the purpose of this story and all other stories to come in the Icarus series (should the dates become relevant again, Walter's parents died 7 September 1940 and Walter's encounter with Girlycard occurs 10 May 1941. In "Ouroboros" it is mentioned that Walter spent the better part of a year on the streets, this is the end of that period._

_I did my best with details of the damage to Westminster Abbey from news reports from the time, which did a fairly detailed job of reporting the damage to the structure. If I have any historical details wrong, let me know and I'll find a way to correct my error._

* * *

It was just the wrong kind of moon that night. A "bomber's moon," they called it, because on those clear, bright full moon nights, a bomber could spot a blacked out city and target it. 

Walter had known it was a bad idea not to sleep someplace sheltered, but he had found himself outside wandering the darkened city. May was usually comfortable and there was no way he was going to cram himself down in the tube tunnels with all the other sardines.

He was restless. There was something coming. Knowing the Germans, they'd be back to bomb again tonight. They'd bombed the night before, why would they waste a night like this one?

The boy just couldn't shake the itching feeling between his shoulder blades. So far, that itching had been a good thing to pay attention to, so Walter found himself up and wandering London. It wasn't that late, he'd heard the chimes for ten o'clock not that long ago from the Clock Tower.

Small, and charitably called wiry, the boy dodged the occasional people who were out on this brightly moonlit night. He didn't want some well-meaning person to decide the poor waif needed someone to watch him. Walter had been doing just fine on his own for the past eight months and wasn't looking for someone to play Mum or Dad for him.

Wandering feet and boredom were what brought Walter to the grounds of Westminster Abbey that night. The open grass was fragrant and it was a place to lie back and watch the stars. That was one thing to be said for the enforced blackouts – the stars to be seen from the city were awe-inspiring without the lights to drown them out.

Even though he was paying attention to the sky, it was the sound that warned him first – a low drone that started at the very edge of his hearing and gained in volume rapidly before being drowned out by the sound of air raid sirens.

"Shit." Even in his head, even though he knew his mother was dead, Walter still looked around furtively for cursing. Some habits didn't break easily.

The droning grew to compete with the sirens and Walter scanned the sky looking for the bombers. It didn't take long for more noise to join the sounds of sirens and planes – explosions, anti-aircraft fire, shouts as fire brigades prepared to put out countless fires.

The boy still sat in the grass near the abbey. There didn't seem to be much point in going anywhere. The bombs were dropping everywhere.

The itch between his shoulder blades did drive Walter behind a tree before the first bombs fell on the abbey and its grounds. He watched in amazement as parts of the centuries old church were turned to rubble.

It aroused a fury the boy hadn't known he had in him. He'd been angry when his parents had been killed, leaving him a ten year old orphan. He'd been angry many times in the past eight months as he fought to take care of himself against people who thought that because they outmassed the runt, they could do what they wanted to him.

But he'd never felt the sort of outrage he felt watching the bombing of Westminster Abbey. Why? Were the Germans against everything including God?

When a shadowed figure darted across his vision with a speed he thought only he was capable of, Walter was tempted away from the shelter of his tree.

A small girl went running toward the abbey after the first figure, and Walter could do nothing else but follow. The adult could fend for himself, but the little girl might not know any better.

"Hey!" He ran after the two. "Don't go in there!"

The first person – a man, Walter saw as he caught up to the runners – dodged away around the side of the building. Walter thought it almost looked as though the girl was chasing, not following, him.

Absurd. He shook the idea and chased after them. They were both moving faster than anyone Walter had known except himself. People like him? That was irresistible to the curious boy.

People were shouting, but Walter paid no attention to them as he chased the man through the north entrance.

He'd been in the abbey before. He'd visited just about every major London landmark for both the London people saw on the surface and the dirtier London underneath. But he hadn't been there when the north transept was lit by the orange light of flames from the roof.

The fires made everything move. The white flash of the girl's clothes drew him off to the left toward the Confessor's Chapel. It was easier to follow than the vague shadow Walter assumed was the man the girl had followed in.

"Hey! Get out of here before the fires get worse!" He pushed himself all out as the pair ran up the stairs and into the Lady Chapel.

Walter skidded on the checkered tiles and looked around. They had to be in here somewhere, didn't they?

The fires on the roof of the abbey lit the chapel through its stained glass, making the chamber dance with shifting shadows. He could see the stacked sandbags that shielded royal tombs and at the far end a sudden bright flash and a report that might have been a gunshot, but who could really tell for sure with the rest of the noise of bombing, shouting, and fire?

Walter's curiosity drew him onward when that itching between his shoulder blades told him that he should be getting out of there and doing it very, very soon.

"Hey! Girl! Are you back there?" He passed the vacancy where the altar should have been and strained to pick detail out of the darkness that covered the far end of the chapel. His efforts were impeded by the shadows that teemed there in defiance of the light that came through the colored glass ringing the upper half of the chapel.

"Go away little boy, before you get hurt."

The shadows seemed to push the white-suited figure forward. "Go home…" She held her hands over her face as though playing peek-a-boo. Walter squinted at her clothes – they were covered in black stains, but every so often a vagary of light would make the stains glare red.

_"Go home." _

He took a step back. The growl in the girl's voice had made the itch between his shoulder blades almost burn.

"Right. Where's the man you were following?" Why was he even bothering?

He knew why. He couldn't save his parents, but how would he feel if someone had had a chance to help his mother and father and just left them?

"Dead."

This time it was the giggle in the girl's voice that pushed Walter back a step.

"Dead. Dead. Dead. And he can stay in the Land of the Dead." She spun around and laughed, her hands still covering her face.

She came to a stop facing him dead on. "Come on, little boy, show me out. Rescue me."

Walter stopped himself from retreating any more. This girl was giving him the creeps, though, with her giggle and her singsong voice, and the way she hid her face from him.

"Come on, then." He turned back toward the abbey proper, glancing back to be sure the girl was following him, which she was, unerringly, despite the fact that she continued to play her odd little game of peek-a-boo.

"Don't look back, little boy. You want to see what's in front of you, not behind."

"Stop calling me little boy." He trotted out of the chapel and down the stairs.

The roof groaned and Walter cast a fearful glance upward. Sparks and embers fell to the floor in the tower crossing – in other words, between the two children and the exit.

They dodged through the falling debris. Walter kept his eyes on the roof and the fires.

The collapse of the roof over the tower crossing was preceded by the sound of cracking timbers and the protest of the vaulting as the structure let go. Walter glanced back and grabbed one of the girl's wrists, jerking her hand away from her face to drag her as fast as he could away from the mass of debris that was coming down on their heads.

Black

Red

_Eyes_

•••

"Why are you bringing me strays, Alucard? Don't tell me you're going girly." Arthur looked at the unconscious boy and shook his head in annoyance. "What good is this street urchin going to do me? Put him back where you found him."

Alucard joined Arthur at the boy's bedside and gave Walter an unreadable look. "He saw me."

Hellsing's leader looked down at his ace and shrugged. "Why should I care if he saw you? What's to worry about if he saw a pretty little girl?" He gave Alucard a crooked smile. "Or did your charms wile him already?"

"No, Arthur. He saw me." The vampire looked up at Arthur very seriously. "I couldn't hold the shadows tonight in the church. He saw."

Alucard picked up Walter's hand and uncurled the boy's fingers to show Arthur the rings he wore. "And then he cut me with wires that came out of these."

Arthur frowned when Alucard brushed fingertips over the boy's before putting his hand back down on the bed.

"He has potential," the vampire said. "You won't regret taking him on." Alucard favored Arthur with a gleaming smile while taking the man's hand to lead him out of the room.

"Trust me."


	5. Eumenides

Silver blue moonlight cast exaggerated shadows and highlights on the sleeping youth's features. Alucard reclined on the pillow next to him and watched Walter's repose.

It wasn't the first time, nor likely the last, that Alucard had watched the young man sleep. His mind was so open and malleable – there was no way the vampire could resist the opportunity to pry and mold.

Simple, really.

That first night in Westminster Cathedral, he had seen something rare in the boy. Not everyone had the potential that child had shown. Not everyone had the potential in them to not just kill, to not just love killing, but to love killing with a clear mind and a conscious will. Walter had that potential and it roused Alucard's interest greatly.

Since then he had watched Hellsing's foundling take to the role of Angel of Death as though born to it. He could almost see another hand guiding the boy's development. On the occasional days when Alucard believed in God, he wondered if the sobriquet might be more accurate than he'd thought when he'd playfully bestowed it on the youthful hunter.

In a life as long as Alucard's, most coincidence was suspect.

This night, though, the young man slept peacefully, lips parted slightly, dark lashes standing out in contrast to the pale skin of his cheek. Alucard smiled, sharp teeth gleaming in the almost tangible rays of moonlight. If he didn't know the dreams unfolded behind that peaceful countenance, the vampire might have thought the sleeper innocent.

Behind an angel's face, the mind was bloody and strong. After the first time Walter permitted the vampire into his dreams, there were nights when Alucard lay next to Walter to watch his dreams the way some humans seemed to enjoy watching television.

Alucard watched the dreams this night with interest.

After Walter's first solo hunt, the boy had refused to speak to him about his near miss with the human. Alucard recognized the setting and his more adult form.

In Walter's dream, Alucard watched the boy wait in a shadowed doorway with a tall man in a vivid red greatcoat. He stayed with the reliving of the boy's anticipation and nervousness, his frustration with the vampire's teasing, and his rising tension as the pair followed their targets to the park before splitting up to allow Walter to go it alone.

He smirked slightly at the boy's certainty that his target was the larger and older of the pair. Walter should have remembered the detail that the customers were showing up dead, not the little boy whores.

Walter deserved the shock he got next when the boy attacked him and not the man. However, Alucard couldn't fault his speed of response to the shock. Reliving his memory of that sudden spray of blood was delicious, complete as it was with the sensation of warm skin suddenly chilled with cool vampire blood.

The next moments were intensely interesting to Alucard – Walter's relief and jubilation at being alive was interrupted by the running steps of the human man that Walter had been targeting. The vampire had unwittingly saved that human with the timing of his attack on the boy hunting him.

As quickly as the sudden shift in target, Walter's triumph was replaced with the sick recognition that he had nearly killed a human. With everything he'd done, everything he'd seen, the boy, arrogant and ignorant in his youth, had not understood just what it meant to have death at his fingertips.

Death does not discriminate.

Here was a problem that needed to be dealt with. Allowing this event to color Walter's thoughts with mistaken guilt or compassion was unacceptable.

Alucard expanded his presence in Walter's dreams, not just observing, but directing. The scene cut with the simple fade of dream logic, spinning Walter back to the moment he entered the park following the pair. He felt the young man's psyche resist the shift, bringing a strong feeling of déjà vu to the scene.

_Walter drew a deep breath and felt his adrenaline surge, leaving his skin prickling and hot as he dug his toes into the grass under his feet and launched himself at the pair._

He flinched, expecting a blow that didn't come, and crossed enough distance to separate the man's head neatly from his shoulders.

He registered the hot spray of the man's blood and the sharp agony of breaking ribs at the same moment. Staggered from the surprise attack, Walter fell back several steps and recognized the boy he had thought was just plying his wares.

The vampire leapt at him, fangs bared to kill, only to cut himself to pieces on the web of wire that Walter threw up in front of himself. The youth's swift reaction belied the scream of bone rubbing on bone that shook him with every movement as he wielded his wires and twisted away from the vampire's flying remains.

"If it weren't for that human, you wouldn't have been hurt."

Walter spun around and struck out, wincing when his fist struck Alucard in the sternum; the vampire remained unmoved, but the shock of impact through his ribs left Walter feeling nauseated.

"You didn't tell me it was the boy!" 

Alucard let the dream fade with a smile. This time Walter's anger had not stemmed from misplaced guilt about nearly harming the human; he had been angry that killing the human had distracted him and gotten him hurt.

That was much more the Angel of Death he wanted to see.

"Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Alucard laid a bare whisper of a kiss on Walter's lips before dissolving into shadows. 


	6. Cassandra

Arthur paced his study, looking up at the shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling – filled with lore that most humans should never begin to imagine – but not a one of them could tell him how to handle this problem with his young servant.

"Walter…" he began, and then stopped, shaking his head.

How was he supposed to tell this boy/man/killer to stay away from the only individual who gave him any sort of companionship?

Walter stood silently on the other side of the desk watching Arthur's discomfiture. It would have been amusing under almost any other circumstance – the hopeless reprobate at a loss for words after catching his young butler and his servant vampire with their mouths inches apart from a kiss.

The point and problem being that Arthur had caught Alucard and Walter inches away from their first kiss.

After years of propositions and refusals, advances and retreats, Walter had made the choice to at least try the barest taste of what the vampire was offering, and Arthur had chosen then to walk in to the library. The butler made a mental note to forget to order more of Arthur's favorite cigars for a while.

"I know that Alucard is seductive," Arthur tried. "But he's dangerous."

Walter smirked and shook his head. "Sir, I think I know that." What did the man think he and Alucard had done in Poland? Played hopscotch?

"Don't do it, Walter." Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably and poured himself a drink. "Trust me. You'll regret it for the rest of your life."

He looked haunted as he swirled the amber liquid in his tumbler before downing it in a single swallow. "Nothing is ever the same after."

"Is that why…?" Was that why the hookers? The alcohol? The slight unhinged look that Arthur perpetually wore?

"Nothing is ever the same, Walter. I can't order you to stay away from him because you two must work together, but I warn you – think of your future. If you ever want to have a normal relationship with a human, don't let the vampire seduce you."

"I'll think about it, Sir," Walter promised, frowning as Arthur poured another drink. "But don't drink yourself into a stupor over it. Sir Penwood is arriving in an hour and I promised him that you'd be sober."

Arthur waved a hand at his servant and turned away. "I'll be ready when he gets here. Dismissed."

Alucard leaned against the wall outside, giving his master and the butler the illusion of privacy. He pushed away from the wall and matched his pace to Walter's as the young man strode away from Arthur's office to continue his day.

"Did he scare you off, Angel? Are you frightened of the big, bad vampire now?" Alucard fluttered his lashes and gave Walter an almost coquettish smile.

"I'm not scared, but I think Arthur has a point." Walter stopped and turned to face Alucard. There'd been a time when they'd been the same height, but now the young man was half a head taller than the petit vampire. He changed, Alucard did not.

"Taking the advice of a man you have to hound to be responsible?" Alucard's face barely changed as the mockery in his voice made his opinion obvious. "What does Arthur know?"

Walter shook his head, remembering Arthur's face. "What it's like to kiss you, for one. I have work."

Alucard watched Walter walk away, only the angry red of his eyes hinting at his reaction to the young man's rejection.


	7. Labyrinthos

Walter turned in a slow circle and surveyed the mixed grey and red scenery. Shadows flickered on the edges of his vision, darting in and out of the luridly lit mists that surrounded him.

"Frightened, Angel?"

"What's going on, Alucard? Where are we?" He recognized nothing about his surroundings.

"This way!"

Walter followed the vampire's chiming laughter, the hazy grey drawing closer around him until he walked a corridor delineated by walls of dirty fog that pulsed with bloody light.

He stopped when the corridor came to a T, looking both directions for signs of movement. "Alucard?"

"What's taking you so long, slowpoke?" Walter oriented himself and turned left to follow the familiar giggle, following a sweeping curve to the right.

"Where are we?" The next intersection provided a choice of doubling back along a corridor that paralleled the one he'd already traveled or taking another left.

Walter doubled back, slowing down as he heard quiet voices. One sounded like Alucard's though, and the young man picked up his pace.

When Walter swung around the corner the next time the corridor doubled back, he stopped in his tracks. In the far end of the short alcove his turn had revealed, Walter witnessed a pair locked in what appeared to be a passionate embrace. The two separated and Walter recognized himself and the taller, older form of Alucard he had seen occasionally during his years at Hellsing.

The pair turned and walked into the mist at the end of their cul-de-sac. Walter frowned at the vision before remembering his first solo vampire kill. They'd put on a show of being lovers then. That was all he was seeing. Just a harmless memory of an act put on for others.

But that was a dead end.

Walter turned back and took the left he hadn't taken at the last intersection. "Alucard, this isn't funny." Frowning, he pulled off his shoes and wrapped a wire around one, using it as an anchor as he unraveled a monofilament thread behind himself to at least keep track of where he'd been in this bizarre place.

After a few more almost random turns and retries, Walter was moving deeper into the maze. He followed a short length of corridor to a sharp right that led into a shallow alcove. Standing in the alcove was a little girl with her hands covering her face.

"What are we doing here?" Walter reached out to pull Alucard's hand away from his face when a flash of memory stopped him abruptly. The memory of red eyes, sharp teeth, and a writhing, living darkness made his skin prickle with fear and anticipation.

"Alucard?"

"Come on, little boy, show me out." The diminutive vampire brushed past him and walked forward into and through the wall.

Walter hissed in frustration at the replayed memory, and backtracked to the last intersection.

"Angel…" drifted to him in a teasing sing-song.

Following Alucard's continued taunting guidance, Walter turned into another dead end and stared, horrified at the sight that confronted him there. He didn't recognize the huge man who held a limp, nude, and bloodied version of Walter's younger self, cleaning him with a washcloth that had stained pink the water in the basin he used.

The younger Walter suddenly twisted in the big man's grip and pulled away to stumble through a wall with the other man in pursuit.

"Forward, not back, Angel."

Alucard's voice came from right next to his ear; when Walter turned, he was alone. Turning back to the scene he'd been watching, he faced a now-empty dead end – no table, no basin filled with bloody water, and no younger Walter or his caregiver.

He shook his head. Obviously, there was more here than just memories, since he had no idea who that man had been.

"Waaaal-terrrrrrr."

"How many times do I have to tell you this isn't funny?" Walter grumbled and backtracked yet again to head in a new direction.

He nearly turned away from next scene, but this one was easier to face since he didn't know either man involved – not the big man in the armor, nor the smaller, slender man wearing a monocle. He watched scarlet tendrils hold the smaller man off the ground but turned away, uncomfortable, when the big man bent to kiss his captive.

None of this made any sense.

Walter left the two men behind. They were completely involved in each other anyway.

"Did that make you nervous?"

Walter shook his head and kept walking, refusing to rise to Alucard's disembodied taunt. The curved walls of the maze curved more severely as he worked his way inward. He followed several more paths to empty dead ends before turning down another doubled-back corridor.

At the far end of the corridor, he could tell that it opened out into a wider space than he had seen thus far.

Between him and the open space stood Alucard, looking at him with a familiar petulant expression on his pretty face. "You said you would give me a kiss if you lost."

"What?" Walter looked around, but the vampire was looking at him. "Lost what?"

"No. You gave me a dry peck on the cheek. You give a maiden aunt a dry peck on the cheek." Alucard advanced on him until he was tilting his head up to look at the taller youth. "I want my prize."

"If it's about this bloody maze, I'd say I'm about ready to win if you'll just get out of my way."

Alucard cocked his head at him and frowned. "It would be right if I were a woman?" Slowly, a smile spread over his face and Walter realized that the small vampire had subtly changed – his hips rounding, suit jacket tightening over the soft swell of her breasts. She looked both older and undeniably female.

"There. Now it is right, and I will have what you promised me." Alucard rose up on her toes and wrapped her arms around Walter's neck.

When he sucked in a breath to protest that he'd promised nothing, Alucard took it as license to kiss him insistently, pressing her tongue between his lips, and molding her body against his.

Walter made a muffled sound under Alucard's unexpected assault and stumbled slightly, using his hands on her hips to keep himself from falling backward. After Stoker's description of Dracula's "reeking lips," he was surprised that the kiss tasted faintly of cigarettes and toothpaste. At least someone, probably him, had taught Alucard to brush the bits of human flesh out of his teeth.

His initial incongruous thoughts were chased away as he became more aware of the vampire's body. She wasn't as cold as he'd expected, and she was soft where she pressed herself against him, making it impossible to ignore her new feminine attributes.

She kissed him until his stiff posture relaxed and his hands slipped off her hips and around her waist to hold her closer. Then she disappeared, leaving him holding and kissing air.

"Bollocks." He looked around, but there was no sign of Alucard, not even a taunting giggle.

"Right." Walter straightened his clothes and walked down the hall to the open area he'd spotted.

The corridor opened out into his darkened bedroom where he already lay asleep in his bed. He stood over himself and watched his eyes track back and forth under his eyelids. He wiped the thread of spittle off his sleeping self's cheek and looked out his bedroom window at the Hellsing grounds.

So, he'd been dreaming. That explained a lot. Not everything, but a lot.

Now, how to get out of this?

If it was a dream, he reasoned, the way out was to wake up, but the idea of waking himself directly filled him with a superstitious dread. Weren't there stories about waking sleepwalkers? And wasn't he a type of sleepwalker?

Then put the sleepwalker to bed?

Walter shrugged and lay down next to himself. It was as good a plan as any.

•••

Alucard pulled away from Walter's dream as it faded and stared contemplatively at the lid of his coffin. He had recognized more than Walter had, but he was still puzzled. Some were clear visions of the past, but others…

Walter had never seen the vampire as warlord, but that bearded man in armor was one of Alucard's oldest identities. And whether Walter had recognized the other man in that pair or not, Alucard had seen Dornez blood in the lines of the monocled man's face.

There was more at work in the young butler's dream than just the vampire's curiosity.

Alucard pushed his coffin lid open and went in search of a toothbrush and toothpaste. If there were more to Walter's dream than just his subconscious, the vampire would be ready for a kiss.  



	8. Acheron

_A/N: Acheron is one of the rivers in Hades - Lethe (forgetfulness,) Styx (hate,) Acheron (woe,) Cocytus (lamentation,) and Phlegethon (fire.) I'm working on Styx at the moment; Cocytus and Phlegethon are on my list to write as well for Icarus._

* * *

"Happy Birthday, Walter." 

Walter looked up at Maggie, the downstairs maid, and gave her a cheery wave before ducking into his room and closing the door with a sigh of relief.

He lit a cigarette and looked at his reflection in the mirror the night made of his bedroom windows. He had a feeling that the young man with the old eyes he saw there wasn't supposed to be dreading birthdays at only sixteen.

"You're going to do it again this year?"

"Yes, Alucard, I'm going to do it again this year." Walter didn't turn to look at the vampire he couldn't see reflected in the window. "Why don't you go find better company tonight?"

"This is a foolish waste of time. Every year you mope around your birthday and the anniversary of your parents' deaths. They're dead and you're growing older – both things are unavoidable."

"Then I'll foolishly waste my time by myself. It's _my_ time and _my_ birthday; I'll do what I want." Walter rummaged quickly through his desk for money and car keys.

Alucard leaned against Walter's door and watched him collect those few items and a coat. "Let me guess. You'll be driving down into London, where you will go to the site where your home stood. There, you will walk around, smoke cigarettes, and indulge yourself in needless sorrow over your survival and their deaths."

Walter scowled at the vampire. "My parents died on my damned birthday! Forgive me for not feeling like eating cake and singing songs."

"And you are now somehow responsible for the Germans' decision to bomb London on that night? Or maybe you were to blame for the full moon that made the bombing a better proposition?"

He remained blocking Walter's exit and gave him a thin shadow of a smile. "You take revenge as you can – and you have. You enjoy the life you have – and you usually do. And you do not waste your time grieving the past or things over which you had no control."

"You know, if I wanted the inscrutable wisdom of the ancients, I'd go see a Charlie Chan film." Walter stood staring down at the vampire, trying to stay angry while the monster that was really his only friend smiled up at him.

Alucard shook his head and still refused to move. "Or you could stay here with your friend, who is an inscrutable ancient."

"No. Get out of the way. Consider it your birthday gift to me."

"No," and while Alucard stood aside to allow Walter to pass, he followed close on the young man's heels.

"Go on. I left some of your favorite blood type in the refrigerator. Enjoy it. I'll be back later. I promise you that no mugger or rapist will get me on my birthday." He thought he'd almost like to see one try. It would give him something to do.

He turned around, surprised that Alucard didn't continue bothering him, but the vampire was gone.

•••

Home.

Walter walked through the empty lot where his home had stood. There was no rubble. No refuse. Technically, he owned this plot of land, but his home was at Hellsing.

Standing where the kitchen had been, he closed his eyes and remembered the birthday cake his mum had made for him. He'd thought he'd been so lucky when he found the little silver charm in his slice of the lemon cake.

_Our lucky boy._

_Our son._

_Happy birthday, Walter._

_We love you. _

"Then why'd you leave me?" he asked the empty lot.

Walter went still as a scream ripped the night air, then turned his head from side to side, trying to trace it. For long moments, he heard nothing but the night sounds of a city that didn't shut down because of the blackout imposed as part of the war.

_"Help!"_ The cry was panicked, a scream, not a shout.

There were no streetlights, and every alley was mineshaft-dark, but Walter followed the sounds of screams to the mouth of another stygian alley and didn't hesitate to plunge into the darkness to stop the screaming, one way or another.

A turn in the alley brought it into moonlight and Walter could make out two figures, occasional flashes of thrashing white skin that told the boy what he was witnessing.

"Get the fuck off of her!" He grabbed the man's hair and hauled him off of the woman, throwing him against a wall. He kicked the man as he tried to get up, first in the ribs, and then in the face. The sound of bones breaking was a satisfying one in the relative silence as the woman's cries cut off into muted sobs.

Memories surfaced as he kicked the man. Memories of Poland, and the werewolf, and… He kicked harder, sobbing in rage.

For an unmeasurable time, the alley was filled with the dull thud of kicks that rained down and Walter's harsh and broken breathing.

_Fuck you!_

_Fuck rapists!_

_Fuck the Germans._

_And their bombers._

_Fuck werewolves._

_Fuck vampires._

_Fuck my birthday._

_Fuck all of this! _

Walter finally realized that his target hadn't moved for some time. The wall against which the man had slumped was splattered with a glistening blackness that he knew from years of experience would be a grisly red in the daylight.

The man made no sound as the boy rolled him over with his foot. Maybe he was limp and floppy because he was unconscious, but really, as a child of war, Walter knew better.

He'd killed a man.

No. He'd kicked a man to death and didn't regret it at all.

The dead man's victim was long gone. Walter didn't remember her leaving, but he supposed that was understandable; he'd been in a bit of a killing trance when those memories returned to him in a circumstance where he could have such a very effective catharsis.

He remembered Alucard's offer to take the memories and smiled down at the dead man's body. In two years, the vampire had never hinted that he knew something like that about Walter, when even Walter didn't know it.

And now, two years later, he could live with those memories. They'd returned to him in a moment when _he_ had the power. He nudged the dead rapist with his foot and smiled one more time before turning to leave the alley.

It seemed Lady Luck had finally decided to smile on his birthday. Walter thought her smile might just have some very sharp teeth in it, but he was smiling, too, as he emerged from the alley, leaving bloody footprints behind himself for the better part of a block until he reached his car.

Behind him, the dead man sat up and chuckled to himself. "Help. Help," Alucard mocked as he put his own face back on and pulled the shadows that had formed the "woman" into himself.

"Happy birthday, Angel," he said with satisfaction. He had a feeling he had finally broken Walter of his maudlin habit of birthday woe.


End file.
